Restoring This WWII B-29 Bomber Has Taken 300K Hours So Far

This summer, if the dreams of a nonprofit group in Wichita, Kansas, come true, two World War II-­era B­-29 Superfortress bombers will fly together for the first time in a half ­century. Doc, originally one of a squadron of eight airplanes named for Snow White and the seven dwarfs, will finally take off and join Fifi, which has been flying since 1974. It’s an unlikely event that almost didn’t happen—two relics, loud and slow, each of them powered by four big finicky radial engines, restored and maintained by hundreds of volunteers. Together, they’ll be an impressive sight, their polished aluminum skins gleaming in the sun, their long slender wings stretching 140 feet tip to tip, living ambassadors from the distant past.
“There was a good chance this airplane was never going to fly again,” says Jim Murphy, leader of the restoration effort for Doc’s Friends. “We weren’t going to let that happen.” The airplane, built in 1944, was decommissioned after serving in the Korean War, then used for target practice in the California desert. The bomber’s technology was outdated. It was slow. Its military usefulness was gone. But a group of historians who dreamed to see the big airplane fly again rescued it in 1987, and in 2000, Doc was trucked to Wichita for restoration.
Murphy plans to roll the airplane out of the hangar soon, and start taxi and flight testing in the spring. “We’re going to try hard to fly to Oshkosh [Wisconsin] in July,” he says, where Doc and Fifi could finally meet. The two crews plan to fly together above the crowds at EAA AirVenture, the biggest air show in the world. The formation, though small, will evoke the memory of a sky full of the bombers, 1,000 at a time, flying above Tokyo in the final days of World War II.
When the B-29 was designed by Boeing in 1939, it was a technological powerhouse. The guns could be fired by remote control using computerized sights. The crew areas were pressurized, so the men could tolerate long missions at altitudes above 18,000 feet. Eight turrets housed machine guns, and some versions carried a 20mm cannon beneath the tail. The cockpit instruments and radar gear were accurate enough to help the crews aim at targets through cloud layers and at night. Nearly 4,000 were built. The Enola Gay, whose crew dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, was a B-­29.

A US Air Force Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber flying above the clouds and mountains, mid 1940s. Underwood Archives/Getty Images

“Most of Doc’s parts are exact copies of the original parts,” says Murphy, “but the engines have been upgraded. The original engines had lots and lots of problems.” The front-­row cylinders on the radials exhausted to the front, he says, causing overheating and fires. “Those engines were the most unreliable part of the airplane,” says Murphy. “Fifi had already converted to a modified hybrid engine design that combines the original front end with the back end of an engine off an old Sky Raider, and adds 1,000 horsepower. We’ll use that same modification, but the engines will look and sound just the same as the originals.”
That look and sound is important to the few remaining veterans who still remember their WWII missions. “Last summer, we got a call from the 73rd Bomb Wing—they wanted to hold their final reunion in the hangar here with Doc,” says Murphy. “Listening to those guys and the stories they told, it was a day I’ll never forget. One guy had been shot down three times. Another was a gunner, and he’d been shot in the face—he lost his nose and part of an eye—and he only missed one mission. Those guys could have come home after 20 missions, but they all flew 35 or 40. ‘We went over to win, not to go home,’ they said. All the stories—it was like it was yesterday, when those guys saw the airplane.”
The restoration’s not done yet. “The airplane is still up on jacks. We’re finishing up the gear doors and we should have those ready this week, then we’ll be ready to test the gear. Then we’ll come down off the jacks for the last time. We’ve got to do the finishing touches on the avionics, then we’ll just be waiting for weather,” Murphy says.
Once Doc is up and flying this summer, Murphy will face the next challenge—how to recruit and train the next generation of volunteers to keep the airplane in the air. It takes a crew of six to fly Doc: two pilots, a flight engineer, and three observers to monitor the flaps and gear and all the other moving parts. Dozens more are needed to maintain and provide support for the big bomber. Most of the current crew are retired workers from Boeing, including a few in their 90s who were there when the original fleet was built. “We’ve logged nearly 300,000 volunteer hours on this project,” says Murphy. “The first time Doc takes to the air, there’ll be a big celebration.” With any luck, that day is coming up soon.
All images courtesy Doc’s Friends via Flickr, unless otherwise noted